


Escape from Earth

by Linorien



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 2019 Camelot Remix, Astronomy, Can be read as friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 06:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18889057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linorien/pseuds/Linorien
Summary: In his second life, Arthur strives to continue what Merlin started. Anything to feel closer to his best friend. Along the way, he finds a deeper understanding of math, life, and the universe.





	Escape from Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lyss2011](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyss2011/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I'll be Seeing You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17811278) by [Lyss2011](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyss2011/pseuds/Lyss2011). 



> Like every astronomer, I wept for Opportunity, but I also believe in a bright future. Even if it will take some time.

In his first life, Arthur didn’t care much for the stars. They were distant and unchanging. Sure they looked nice on a clear summer’s evening on patrol, but that’s all they were. Something pretty to look at until he fell asleep.

He’d never imagined seeing them any closer.

While he waited in Avalon, Merlin sent him mental pictures of the ever changing world. Simple things like sheep on a cliffside. Or exciting discoveries like electricity. One time he sent Arthur an image while skydiving. Despite not having a body, he felt sick for a week after that.

It wasn’t all images. Sometimes they simply talked. Merlin would tell him about the series finale of a tv show he enjoyed, or an amazing discovery humans had made. He said it like that too. _Humans_. As if he no longer considered himself one of them.

Patterns emerged in what Merlin chose to share with him. Rockets being invented. Deep sea submarines. Virtual reality. Escape. Arthur knew the passage of time was wearing on him. In the last two hundred years, Merlin had moved away from the cities and the towns to live in the countryside. Where the most advanced technology was a landline phone.

Yet there were things that still made him travel. May 5, 1961: Merlin watched Alan Shepard, Jr. become the first American in space. (Yuri Gagarin’s launch had been too secretive.) July 20, 1969: Merlin had managed to get inside NASA to watch the first humans set foot on the moon. And then there was some unknown date when Merlin attended a internal NASA announcement of the Pathfinder mission. All Arthur knew was that the concept art of the rover on Mars had been the last images Merlin had ever sent.

Their communications became shorter, more melancholy. Until one day it ended.

_"Arthur..." Merlin's voice was slow and tired. "I think...I think you're ready. I prepared you for the world, and I. I have to go. I can feel myself fading. My magic, it's dying._

_"Merlin, no, you- no. I'll," Arthur’s voice broke and for the first time he could feel something of his body in the nothingness. Tears were hot on his cheeks, dripping down his chest. "I'll find you. I'll find you when I-when I get out. Please. Wait for me. P-please."_

But Merlin escaped from his body before Arthur returned to his own.

His parents called it a childhood dream. Arthur knew it was Merlin’s legacy. How could he not cling to the remaining passion Merlin had shared with him. He never found out how Merlin had sent him that last image, because NASA did not announce Pathfinder until Arthur had already been living in this new world, in this new body, for twenty-one years.

By then Arthur was well into working on a degree to get him to Cape Canaveral.

The long days of countless frustrating equations had begun to wear on him, but when a classmate mentioned the rover, his world seemed to freeze. He remembered why he was doing this.

Although the passion faded again when he was first hired at NASA and he spent long hours trying to create instruments for scientists who didn’t understand engineering. Then he was assigned to the MER-B mission. He’d heard of this. It was one of the twin rovers being sent to Mars. He’d also heard someone call the rovers two sides of the same coin.

The next five years saw him getting more attached to this rover.

Alvarez, his boss, grinned and slapped him on the back. "It's growing on you too." Alvarez had fallen in love with the prototype, and Arthur could swear he roamed the labs to find others who were growing fond of it as well.

"Is not. I just finally got this instrument connected properly and it worked." He would never admit that he'd been fond of MER-B for the past few months.

The rover launched. The team waited. Arthur had waited longer for images.

When the images came, they blew him away. He had thought nothing could amaze him as much as seeing Merlin use his magic, but Opportunity proved him wrong. The burnt red hills and mountains and canyons blew him away. It was a whole new world, and he had installed the camera. He wished he could show Merlin the same way Merlin had shared images with him.

When the first dust storm blew in, Arthur thought it was over. But the universe had different ideas. Just like Arthur, the rover was destined to die and be reborn. The wind blew the dust off the solar panels and new messages were sent across the void of space.

Only messages from this universe though. Nothing from Avalon.

He had hoped he’d hear something after Pathfinder had landed. He’d hoped after Spirit. After Opportunity.

Despite the optimistic names, Arthur was losing hope.

"My battery is low and it's getting dark."

Arthur would deny the tears in his eyes, even as Alvarez expressed hope that Opportunity could wake up after the next wind storm.

The team sent command after command, hoping and praying for a response.

He knew it wouldn't come; he'd made that mistake before.

No response came. NASA declared the mission at an end. The rover had gone on too long without power. Even if the wind cleared the solar panels off again, it would’ve been too far gone. It had grown tired of waiting. The other rovers could carry on. The next one was nearly ready to launch.

Arthur spent many more years working at NASA. He climbed the ranks and became more involved in human-centric engineering. He moved to JPL in Texas. He worked with the technology tests on the ISS, designing creative ways to live in zero-G. The challenges kept his mind focused. He watched at the Mars-One mission launched and then landed successfully on Mars. They would only stay a short time before returning to Earth.

The captain of the ship drove the buggy over to Opportunity’s resting place and dusted off the solar panels. She planted a plaque in the surface.

_I'll find you in the morning sun_

_And when the night is new_

_I'll be looking at the moon_

_But I'll be seeing you_

Arthur stared at his screen, looking at the picture they sent back. His rover, no longer alone on the planet. And given a marker to tell the universe why it was special. He didn’t bother to wipe the tears away. For the first time in a long time, he felt his connection to Merlin strengthen.

He put in his application the next day. If humans were going to establish a base on Mars, they’d need an engineer. They’d need one of the best. And he was one of the best. The interviewers had been doubtful. He was in his late forties. He wore glasses. He’d never flown a plane.

But he had the technical skills. And the leadership skills. And, if everything failed, he had no family left on Earth to mourn him.

So he trained. And though it had been many, many years, it felt like training with the knights again. He even slipped up and called his instructor Sir Erick more than once. He wasn’t the most fit in the class, but he was respected. Everyone knew he would always pass the controls tests and then suggest an improvement to the systems designers.

They launched in January of 2035. Arthur was 62. Not the oldest astronaut, but certainly the oldest on the crew. The crew that would live and die here, working to begin the Mars base in the shadow of Alba Mons. Others would join before too long, but they knew it was always possible for something to go wrong.

July 31st, they landed on the surface. Arthur’s face was glued to the window, watching the planet he loved come into view, flipping the necessary switches without looking. He’d never dreamed this was possible. Not in this lifetime, not in Avalon, and certainly not in Camelot when this planet was nothing more than a bright star in the sky. Now Earth was barely a speck in the sky.

The systems were checked and double checked. They reported back that everything was in working condition. Arthur practically leapt into his spacesuit, eager to feel the martian dirt beneath his feet. With his long history of working on Mars missions, everyone had agreed he could have the honor of being the first one out.

All the patience he had developed over his extraordinary life seemed to have fled. The suit was less complicated than the original designs, but there were still layers upon layers and he had to wait in the decompression chamber. Then finally, the airlock opened.

He gasped.

Slowly, he walked down the ramp, careful not to run and fall in the different gravity.

This was his world, his Mars. Just like the pictures he’d seen from Pathfinder, from Opportunity, from Mars-One. And now he was seeing it with his own two eyes, only a thin protective sheet of glass between. He could feel the pebbles beneath his feet. He could see the mountains on the horizon, seeming closer than they really were.

Something moved just to his right. He turned. He blinked. He couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be real. _He_ couldn’t be real.

Only a shimmer of magic protected him from the harsh atmosphere, but nothing could protect Arthur from the force of the smile as Merlin held out a hand and grinned. “Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Lyss- as soon as I read this fic I knew I had to remix it. It was such a lovely story and I had a lot of fun expanding the tale. You gave me a hard timeline to work with, but I hope you enjoyed what I did with what you started. <3  
> (Originally posted May 19th)


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